You just want to be able to hawk your plentiful carbon credits on the street.

Seriously, it’s a cool concept, but I worry that it would be so administratively ‘heavy’ — whereas a carbon tax is relatively light. And they achieve the same result in the end (vis a vis incentives) albeit sort of in exactly opposite ways.

Exactly right Robin. I just really like the concept of having SUV drivers come to me to buy my credits while I laugh and say “haha morons you’re working for me now!”.

I suppose the carbon tax serves two purposes: 1) raise money to counter the effects of warming 2) change people’s behavior to generate less CO2. The credits system seems more effective to me, in part because it /is/ heavier.